1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to technologies for manufacturing carbon nanotubes and, more particularly, to an apparatus and method for manufacturing large-area carbon nanotubes films.
2. Description of Related Art
Carbon nanotubes are very small tube-shaped structures essentially having the composition of a graphite sheet, formed as a tube. Carbon nanotubes produced by arc discharge between graphite rods were first discovered and reported in an article by Sumio lijima, entitled “Helical Microtubules of Graphitic Carbon” (Nature, Vol. 354, Nov. 7, 1991, pp. 56-58).
A carbon nanotube film is generally composed of a number of carbon nanotubes. In the carbon nanotube film, each carbon nanotube is perpendicular to a surface of the carbon nanotube film along its axis direction. Carbon nanotube films are electrically conductive and thermally conductive along the axes direction of the carbon nanotubes, are chemically stable, have electromagnetism shield function and so on. Due to these and other properties, it has been suggested that carbon nanotube films can play an important role in fields such as microscopic electronics, materials science, biology and chemistry.
With the development of science and technology, large-area carbon nanotube films are more and more needed. At the present, carbon nanotube films are generally made on a base using a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. However, a reactor chamber for growing carbon nanotube film generally has a limited dimension, and, therefore, the dimension of the produced carbon nanotube films may be limited by the reactor chamber.
Therefore, an apparatus and method for manufacturing large-area carbon nanotube films are desired.